Reading Time

Before discussing the results, it is important to highlight that although reading time was not controlled, it was measured, which means that participants did not have a specific amount of time to read, instead they were told that they should approach the texts as they normally read texts from those genres (news story and literary story). As students were aware that they were participating in a thesis research, and also because they were told that after reading the texts they would be asked to answer some comprehension questions, it is believed that they would approach the texts with a study purpose in mind. According to Davies (1995), when the reading purpose is to understand the content of the text, readers tend to reflect more and consequently take more time to read than in other reading situations.

Regardless the genre, participants took from 2 minutes and 17 seconds to 7 minutes and 28 seconds to read Text A, with an average time of 4:08 minutes, which corresponds to 0,77 words per second. The average reading time for Text B was 3:46 minutes, and students took from 1 minute and 52 seconds to 5 minutes and 23 seconds to read it. Consequently, the average number of words read per second in Text B was 0,70. The average number of words read per second indicates that any difference in reading time can be seen as an effect of reading purpose or text type, and not of genre.

Table 7 shows participants’ reading time considering genre, i.e., news story and literary story.

Table 7 – Participants’ Reading Time Considering Genre Participant Text News

Perspective Text Perspective Literary

P1 B 2:52 A 3:10 P2 A 2:17 B 2:14 P3 B 4:20 A 3:59 P4 B 5:23 A 6:03 P5 A 2:21 B 1:52 P6 B 5:13 A 7:28 P7 A 3:32 B 2:07 P8 B 2:52 A 3:19 P9 A 5:44 B 7:42 P10 A 3:24 B 3:10

P11 A 4:18 B 3:46

Average A 3:36 A 4:47

Average B 4:08 B 3:28

Considering genre, the average reading time for Text A under a literary condition was 4:47 minutes, while for the news condition the average time was 3:36 minutes. For Text B, on the other hand, the average reading times were respectively 3:28 minutes for the literary condition and 4:08 minutes for the news condition. Therefore, participants took more time to read Text A purported as a literary story, as opposed to Text B, where participants reading times were higher when they thought they were reading a news story. Consequently, it can be assumed that the texts were easier to understand when read according to the original genre, i.e., Text A as news and Text B as literary, and that Text B, the literary story, was the easiest one. It is possible that even though the texts could be considered as both literary or news, when presented as taken from a source that was not the original, participants faced some problems to build a coherent representation of the texts, the reason why it took more time for them to read.

As declared by Zwaan (1994), the expected reading strategy for reading a news story would be skimming, based on the assumption that most people do not read newspapers integrally, but skim the most relevant news, as opposed to literary stories, that need more time to be read, because they generally contain ambiguities, metaphors, and other linguistic features that slows down the reading speed. Results from this research, as mentioned above, do not corroborate this claim. A possible explanation may be the study condition, which made participants disregard (or do not pay the necessary attention to) the genre and focus on the reading purpose, that is, reading in order to comprehend and answer some comprehension questions.

Moreover, according to Narvaez et al. (1999), as individuals usually have contact with narratives since childhood, it makes them easier to be understood. If this claim is true, it means that participants would need less time to read and comprehend a literary story than a news story, if the first presented more narrative paragraphs than the second, as is the case of this study (Text A is hybrid, with narrative and expository paragraphs, while Text B presents only narrative features).

Table 8 presents participants’ reading times for Texts A and B, regardless the genre:

Table 8 – Participants’ Reading Time for Text A and Text B Participant Text A

Reading Time Reading Time Text B

P1 3:10 2:52 P2 2:17 2:14 P3 3:59 4:20 P4 6:03 5:23 P5 2:21 1:52 P6 7:28 5:13 P7 3:32 2:07 P8 3:19 2:52 P9 5:44 7:42 P10 3:24 3:10 P11 4:18 3:46 Average 4:08 3:46

It can be observed that when reading Text B readers had faster reading times. More specifically 90, 90% of the participants read Text B faster than Text A. Text A, which was originally a news story, was considered more difficult to understand, according to participants’ comments during the pause protocol task, and in the retrospective questionnaire. Thus, genre expectation may have played a role on readers’ approach to texts, but what seems to have actually influenced their reading strategies and behavior was the texts specific features. P2: O primeiro texto (Text A) foi mais complicado porque havia nomes estrangeiros de pessoas e lugares. E também não havia uma contextualização da história em si.

P8: No Segundo texto (Text A) tive dificuldade em entender o contexto da história.

P11: Já faz um tempo em que eu tô continuando a ler (Text A), esperando ter uma imagem mais nítida da história, mas ainda tá confuso.

The fact that Text B was originally a literary story seems to have influenced readers’ approach to it. According to most literature on

reading comprehension, narratives are easier to comprehend, because readers have contact with narrated stories since infancy, as opposed to expository texts, for example, with which most individuals start having contact only at school (Narvaez et al., 1999). As literary stories are frequently associated with the narrative text type, genre expectation might have been replaced by a text type expectation, or the latter might have been stronger. Therefore, narrative familiarity might have influenced readers approach to the text, i.e., the expectation of reading a narrative might have lead students to read the text in a faster way, as it can be observed on the reading times for Text B, that were faster for the literary condition.

Furthermore, although both texts presented almost the same number of words (Text A has 320 words, and Text B is composed of 321 words), besides being read faster Text B was also considered easier to comprehend by students, according to their reports during the Pause Protocol task and in the retrospective questionnaire. It might have happened due to the text structure and lexical choice, which might also have facilitated comprehension.

P2: Eu tava pensando enquanto lia (Text B) que realmente uma contextualização do que tá se passando ajuda bastante a entender a história. (He mentioned that the lack of context jeopardized his comprehension in the first text).

Table 9 presents participants reading times, taking into consideration the order in which the texts used in this study were read.

Table 9 – Participants Reading Time Considering Text Order Participant First Text Second Text

P1 3:10 2:52 P2 2:17 2:14 P3 3:59 4:20 P4 5:23 6:03 P5 1:52 2:21 P6 7:28 5:13 P7 2:07 3:32 P8 2:52 3:19 P9 5:44 7:42 P10 3:10 3:24

P11 4:18 3:46

Average 3:55 4:04

Although participants practiced the Pause Protocol reporting previous to Texts A and B, one could claim that differences regarding reading time might be related to task familiarity, so reading time would be longer for the first text, regardless the genre, and shorter for the second text, as participants would be more comfortable with the task and with the study environment. This hypothesis was not confirmed, as it can be observed on Table 9, that shows no relationship between reading time and text order.